PPC Campaigns: One Step Beyond

April 6, 2006

Part of my job here at 2ndSite is to set up and manage PPC campaigns for our clients. It can be a lengthy process, partly because it takes time to research the client’s web stats, industry, product/service, customers and competition. I do this to get the information needed to develop scenarios of who might be searching and why, define their search terms, and write ads that they can’t help but click on (ideally). Basically, it’s getting into searchers’ heads.

That’s the really fun and interesting part. Then there’s the necessary part of going through the steps to set up a campaign with, say, Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing (nee Overture).

Doing this in AdWords is relatively painless. What hurts me is setting up Yahoo! Serch Marketing campaigns. For example, the very first thing you have to do is select a category for keywords. Now, if you already have a category you want to use, just hit the drop down menu and select your option.

But wait! Then you have to select the radio button next to the category you’ve chosen, otherwise the default option stays as the blank box.

I know it doesn’t seem like much, but when you have to do this over and over again for say, 200 ads, that extra small step becomes a thorn in my side.

It doesn’t end there. Yahoo! must be weary of hearing this, but please, will someone tell me why it’s so difficult to find a support phone number on their site? (+1 (866) 747-7327. Don’t ask me how I got this. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.)

Okay, just one more thing for today. When I submit an ad, it’s sent to Yahoo!’s editorial process for review. If it gets declined – say I put in a broken url – I cannot simply fix the url and resubmit, oh no. I have to download the ad in an Excel spreadsheet (which, by the way does not contain any of the keywords I painstakingly identified to use with the ad) and go through the whole process again. Yes, from step number one (see above).

We like getting feedback like this from our users at 2ndSite because they’re easy changes to implement and makes using the service smoother. In the interest of me being able to spend more time on the cool client stuff, I’m hoping someone at Yahoo! will do the same.

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